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Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Bee quilts are so fun...I love seeing how they come together! And that's the kind of quilt we're featuring today from Kristy of St. Louis Folk Victorian. Kristy describers herself and a modern quilter who loves old houses...love it! :) This confetti quilt turned out oh so cool and modern and I love the collaborative work and how touched Kristy was by her friends effort. Check out Kristy's blog and some fun tutorials!

You've likely heard me mention the Lou Bee Girls before; but you really don't understand how much I truly adore these Ladies. It all started with this...

The STLMQG was expanding by leaps and bounds and a few of us decided to start a small quilting bee where we could take turns making blocks for one another; with the hope that at the end of a year's cycle, we each would have a quilt to call our own.

Several "group" names were tossed around including: Sew Saint Lou, St. Louis Seam Ripping Society, Stitch to my Lou, St. Louis Thread Company, etc. Somehow we decided to agree on "Meet Me In St. Lou"; which because of it's length quickly became "Lou Bee".

In July of 2011, I started off our bee with an Improv Confetti block similiar to what I had seen here. While I had wanted to choose a crazy bold color for the background, the pressure was too much and I decided on two shades of beige...BORING!!!

Yet, once I added a scrappy mix of fabrics in yellow, orange and red; I was confident in my decision to use beige as the background.

The Lou Bee Ladies didn't disappoint and the following month I received 16 completely unique Improv blocks with the most intricate detail. I sadly let those blocks sit for 9 months afraid of how I should piece them together.

Finally, at our Sew-In this past April; I was determined to get them pieced together and as you can see...I did.﻿

The quilt top sat like that for another 3 months and finally this past weekend I felt confident enough to finish. Having limited machine quilting abilities (straight stitch and intentional wonky-stitch), I decided to tackle this with horizontal stitching measuring 1" apart.

As soon as I finished that last stitch, cut that last thread and pulled it away from my machine, I knew that I had finished something truly magical. This quilt will be a constant reminder of the women that I am honored to call my Friends.

In the words of writer, Anais Nin: "Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born."